Does failure to support Mitt Romney’s presidential bid qualify an individual as an anti-Mormon bigot?  

That’s the annoying message subliminally conveyed by the Romney campaign and expressed far less subtly by some of the governor’s increasingly desperate supporters. At a loss to explain the under-funded Mike Huckabee’s polling leads in Iowa, South Carolina, Florida and elsewhere, Romney loyalists assume that the Arkansan’s startling electoral rise depends entirely on prejudice against the LDS church. According to this theory, Evangelical Christians are too suspicious of Mormons even to consider supporting one of them for President, so instead they turn to an unqualified, unimpressive, unknown country bumpkin. 

For the record, let me say that I for one would be honored and proud to vote for a Mormon for president. As I’ve made clear on my show many times, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints are good citizens and great people – hard-working, generous, morally serious, patriotic, and pro-family. All Christians and Jews can learn a great deal from the spectacular success and refreshing wholesomeness of this vigorous religious community.  

But the fact that I’d be glad to vote for a Mormon, doesn’t mean that I want to vote for this Mormon ---and.Governor Romney looks less and less like a viable candidate to me. Part of the problem is the arrogance behind the current posture of the Romney camp. His backers suggest that their guy is so obviously qualified and brilliant and charismatic and wonderful that the only possible reason anyone could fail to endorse him must have something to do with his religious faith. 

There’s an odd sort of jujitsu employed in some of the public arguments: the only way you can prove, definitively, that you’re not an anti-Mormon bigot is to support Mitt. That line of reasoning parallels the notion that you can’t show you’re not a woman-hater unless you endorse Hillary, or that you won’t demonstrate that you’ve conquered racism without backing Barack. 

Come on, guys – there’s plenty of reason to oppose any or all of these candidates without imputing racism or sexism or religious bigotry to your opponents. 

It’s troubling that it was Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, who gave the campaign’s biggest address on religion and politics, and it’s the Romney rooters, not the Huck-a-Nuts, who seem most eager for every opportunity to discuss the role of faith in the campaign. 

In response to this manipulation, we need a clear assertion that refusal to join the Romney bandwagon doesn’t provide evidence of religious bigotry. It may, however, indicate a need for the former Massachusetts Governor to upgrade his campaign with a more positive focus, a clearer issues message, fewer attacks on rivals, and a less defensive edge.